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The Guardian Underground Telephone Exchange was built by Polish workers who were screened to make sure none of them could speak English.
Here's a Google Earth place data module for the main GUARDIAN Telephone Exchange entrance on George street (the main building with the tall ventilation tower, equipment/passenger lifts and 35 foot concrete slab intended to seal up entrance in the instance of a nuclear attack):
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/58208/page/vc
Download the file, open it in Google Earth and you'll get a clear location mark/building plan- it's the one with the car park, look at it in combination with the link in the post above and you'll see which one it is.
The Google Earth page also contains links at the bottom to the location data for the Ardwick and Salford Shafts (the secret exits). Looking at how the whole thing fits together on GE, you see how vast the tunnels must be that connect these exits to the main entrance- and also at how deep underground they are- imagine 17 tall men standing on each other's shoulders, it's that deep underground.
Interesting things are afoot.
There was a fire there in March 2004 which is presumably to blame for when pretty much half the phones in Greater Manchester fucked up (I vaguely remember this happening). BT denies it was in the Guardian Underground Telephone Exchange, however, saying that it happened in a separate, smaller cable tunnel under Rutherford House some distance away- here's a link to the story.
I have suspicions about BT's claims- firstly, there's rumours of the system extending all the way underneath Picadilly gardens (i.e. being about twice as big as has been declassified), and also rumours that Rutherford House is connected to the Guardian Exchange.
The latter rumour I find easier to beleive. This is because of the reinforced armour in Rutherford House's windows. Would you really need all that to protect a simple cable tunnel?
Also, the flyover motorway near the Ardwick Shaft looks as if it's been built so it doesn't start "flying" until it's finished intersecting with the "abandoned" exit tunnel- presumably so that it didn't damage it. Was this because they didn't want the road caving in or because the place was still in use?
But that's not all.
Since Neil Robinson took these photos of the George Street entrance in 2000:
a) As you can clearly see on Google Earth, the supposedly "abandoned" car park has several cars in it- these aren't people who've just driven in there, how would they get through the two metre+ gate and barbed wire?
b) Two large blue double-storey portakabin buildings errected inside the carpark on flanking the main building (so inside the gate you can see on that link).
c) A guard box errected on the left-hand side of the gate.
d) And most importantly three uniformed men, affiliation uncertain. Could be army, could be police, could be security guards, could be BT technicians.
So it's definitely not abandoned anymore. Whether this activity is since 9-11, since the fire (of course it couldn't be if you beleive BT because they say the fire happened in another part of town), or since the London bombs is of course unknown at this point. However, there's definitely something going on. |
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